Between the Covers welcomes MHCC English faculty members, Lidia Yuknavitch, Michelle Hampton, and Andy Gurevich to talk about Writing the Body, Workshops and Readings by Kimberly Dark and Christopher Ryan.
May 8-10, 14: Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham.

The MHCC Interdisciplinary Reading Series is proud to bring you a weekend of writing and performance by internationally known writers Kimberly Dark and Christopher Ryan The speakers will each lead a workshop open to students, faculty, and the community on the theme of Writing The Body.

Harper’s Magazine may have said it best when describing today’s guest, Lorrie Moore: “Fifty years from now, it may well turn out that the work of very few American writers has as much to say about what it means to be alive in our time as that of Lorrie Moore.” Over the course of the past thirty years Lorrie Moore, has earned a place among the best and most beloved of American writers.

The characters in Praying Drunk speak in tongues, torture their classmates, fall in love, hunt for immortality, abandon their children, keep machetes beneath passenger seats, and collect porcelain figurines. From Kentucky to Florida to Haiti, these seemingly disparate lives are woven together within a series of nested repetitions, enacting the struggle to remain physically and spiritually alive throughout the untamable turbulence of their worlds. In a masterful blend of fiction, autobiography, and surrealism, Kyle Minor shows us that the space between fearlessness and terror is often very small. Long before Praying Drunk reaches its plaintive, pitch-perfect end, Minor establishes himself again and again as one of the most talented younger writers in America.

Host Lisa Loving speaks with Portland author Nicole Mones about her latest novel, NIGHT IN SHANGHAI, which illuminates the pivotal role of African-American musicians in the Chinese jazz age. Recruited from the depths of the Depression, whisked to the epicenter of Asia’s hottest nightlife, these jazz players found wealth, freedom, and fame beyond their dreams, only to be caught up in the outbreak of World War II. The novel’s Thomas Greene , a classically trained Baltimore piano player, is tapped to lead a Shanghai swing orchestra. Soon success is his, prestige, illicit love with the brilliant and unavailable Song Yuhua… it’s paradise, and he never wants to leave. But war and revolution pull his w

Host Jay Thiemeyer interviews local author Willy Vlautin about his new novel, The Free.

The book follows the story of Leroy Kervin who has lived in a group home for eight years after being severely injured in the Iraq War. Frustrated by the simplest daily routines, he finds his existence has become unbearable. An act of desperation helps him disappear deep into his mind, into a world of romance and science fiction, danger and adventure where he is whole once again.

Willy Vlautin is the author of three other novels: The Motel Life, Northline, and Lean on Pete, which won two Oregon Book Awards. He is the singer and songwriter of the band Richmond Fontaine and lives in Scappoose, Oregon.

The friendship between Mary and Nix has endured since childhood, a seemingly unbreakable bond, until the mid-1980s, when the two young women reunite for a summer vacation in Greece. It's a trip instigated by Nix, who has just learned that Mary has been diagnosed with a disease that will inevitably cut her life short. Nix, a free spirit by nature, is determined that Mary have the vacation of a lifetime, but by the time their visit to Greece is over, the ties between them have unraveled, and when they said goodbye, it's for the last time. “Ambitious in breadth and scope, this work will appeal to fans of Barbara Kingsolver and those who like being immersed in foreign settings.” —Library Journal

Patrick Dixon is the curator and web designer of IntheTote. He is a member of the organizing committee for the Fisherpoets Gathering. A retired educator, he works as a freelance photographer and writer based in Olympia, Washington

The Fisherpoets Anthology: Anchored in Deep Water, is a seven-book set that is nearing completion. Over 35 poets from the USA, Canada and Japan are represented, with seven interviews of the fishermen and women engaged in commercial fishing along the coasts of the North American continent.

Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with David Vann about his debut novel Caribou Island. Set on a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction.

David Vann is the prize-winning author of Legend of a Suicidel. A former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Wallace Stegner Fellow, and John L'Heureux Fellow, David Vann has taught at Stanford, Cornell, SF State, FSU, and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco. He was born on Adak Island, Alaska and lives in the SF Bay Area with his wife Nancy.

Host Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Kenneth Sharpe, co-author with Barry Schwartz of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing. In the book, Schwartz and Sharpe make a reasoned appeal for wisdom in a world gone mad with ineffectual rules and rampant bureaucracy: from doctors too bogged down with insurance paperwork and quotas to give patients the time they deserve, to teachers too focused on standardized tests to ensure that their students are really learning.

Kenneth Sharpe has been teaching political philosophy (aka political theory) at Swarthmore College since the early 1970s. He has authored five books and completed research on how institutions and organizations--corporations, NGOs, government agencies--work. Kenneth has taught and led public lectures on practical wisdom in the workplace, professional ethics, learning in organizations, social policy and U.S. foreign policy. His most recent book is Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing(Penguin/Riverhead 2010) co-authored with Barry Schwartz.

Host David Naimon speaks with Nicole Krauss about her newest novel, The Great House, which tells a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?

"The Great House" was a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction this year.

Nicole Krauss is also the author of the international bestseller The History of Love, which won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger, was named #1 book of the year by Amazon.com, and was short-listed for the Orange, Médicis, and Femina prizes. In 2007, she was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and in 2010 The New Yorker named her one of the 20 best writers under 40.

Writer, poet and activist Grace Paley's birthday is December 11 (born in 1922, she died in 2007). In honor of Grace Paley Between the Covers presents an interview with local author Judith Arcana, who is Grace Paley's biographer, as well as parts of memorial show produced by KBOO's Circle A Radio Collective on December 5th, 2007. We’ll also hear archival recordings of Grace Paley reading her work.

Host Ed Goldberg speaks with mystery writer Jeffery Deaver about his book, The Burning Wire, a thriller about a killer who uses the New York electric grid as a weapon.

A former journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including The New York Times, The Times of London, Italy's Corriere della Serra,The Sydney Morning Heraldand The Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. The author of twenty-seven novels, two collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, he's received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers Association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window was also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Wolfe Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. The Cold Moonwas recently named the Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan, as well as by Kono Mystery Wa Sugoi magazine. In addition, the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association awarded the book their annual Grand Prix award.
Deaver has been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award and a Gumshoe Award. He was recently shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author.
His book A Maiden's Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin. His novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. His thriller,The Devil's Teardrop, was made into a TV movie by the Lifetime network, starring Natasha Henstridge, Tom Everett Scott, and Rena Sofer.
His most recent books are Edge, The Burning Wire, Roadside Crosses, The Bodies Left Behind, The Broken Window,The Sleeping Doll and More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume II. And, yes, the rumors are true, he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera, As the World Turns.
Deaver is presently alternating his series featuring Kathryn Dance, who will make her appearances in odd-number years, with that starring Lincoln Rhyme, who will appear in even.
Ian Fleming Publications LTD has chosen Jeff to write a new James Bond book, currently titled Project X, to be released on May 28, 2011, Ian Fleming's birthday.

Host Ed Goldberg interviews Northwest writer Patrick McManus about his new book, "The Huckleberry Murders," a tale of murder and greed in rural Idaho.

"The Huckleberry Murders" is the fourth Bo Tully mystery. The 43-year-old Blight County, Idaho, sheriff is headed for his favorite remote spot to pick huckleberries when five frantic women inform him that they've spotted bodies nearby.

Patrick McManus wrote for "Field and Stream" and "Outdoor Life" for over forty years.

He has written many hundreds of humor pieces, including most recently the “The Last Laugh” column for Outdoor Life Magazine. His humor pieces have been collected in 13 books. He has also written a children’s book, Kid Camping from Aaaiii! To Zip! and a book on the writing of humor, The Deer on A Bicycle. Recently, he has started writing mystery novels: The Blight Way (2006), Avalanche (2007), and The Double-Jack Murders (due out in October 2009), all three published by Simon & Schuster. With his sister, Patricia Gass, he wrote a memoir/cookbook, titled Whatchagot Stew. He has written four one-man stage plays, widely performed by actor Tim Behrens in both the United States and Canada.

Pat has received numerous awards, including Centennial Scholar from Washington State University and the Trustees Medal from Eastern Washington University.

Ed Goldberg interviews Skip Horack on his recent novel, The Eden Hunter. "In 1816, five years after being captured and sold into slavery, Kau, a pygmy tribesman, flees south into the Spanish Florida wilderness, determined to find a place where he can once again live in harmony with nature. Both haunted and driven by his memories of Africa, he embarks on an epic quest through the treacherous pinewoods, swamps, and river bottoms of the Southern frontier. . . . Inspired by actual historical events, and at times both violent and beautiful, The Eden Hunter is the amazing story of a man's journey into the turbulent forces of a torn and fragmented land." (Counterpoint, August 2010)

Comments

I've read the book twice and rather hoped to hear the program that the author spoke on the book. But that page was not available on your site. Anyway, I loved the book. I thought it was an exciting dose of history. Stoner brought the Portland of 1900 to life. There was intrigue that kept my interest throughout the book.